On my way home from my seminar today, I saw that my cab’s in-ride video featured, along with three Jeopardy! questions from Alex Trebek, a Jimmy Kimmel feature (his “Pedestrian Belly-Flop” competition) and the weather, and a video from the ceremonies I had just returned from witnessing in person at Boston’s Fenway Park. The headline was-HAHAHAHA!—“First Pitch Goes Horribly Wrong!” and showed Mike Andrews, the ex-Red Sox second baseman from the 1967 “Impossible Dream Team,” receiving a pitch from the ceremonial first pitch tosser, who then heaved the ball far beyond Mike’s reach into a group of photographers, hitting one of them—it’s important to note that he is male–right in the crotch. The clip was attached to an ad for the local ABC affiliate here.

I thought that the mocking video was an ABC product, and it might be, since other ABC affiliates have distributed it. But the same video with similar mockery of the pitch in the commentary is elsewhere, and on its way to going viral. Here is the attached story used by ABC Channel 15 in Arizona:

A photographer and University of Arizona alum was the unfortunate victim of one of the worst first pitches in MLB history on Wednesday night.

Before the Boston Red Sox hosted the St. Louis Cardinals at Fenway Park, the gentleman who tossed out the first pitch threw it juuuuuust a bit outside — and right into a sensitive spot for Tony Capobianco, a photographer and page designer for The Eagle-Tribune who graduated from UA in 2013.

Fortunately, Tony reported he’s OK. Way to Bear Down, sir.

That “sir” is a triumphant cancer survival and success story by The Jimmy Fund, the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute’s ‘s research drive to cure cancer in children that the Red Sox made the organization’s affiliated charity since Ted Williams became passionate involved with the project in the late 1940s. His pitch was the climax of the ceremonies honoring the 50th anniversary of the storied pennant winning team, in part because that team became the first to ever award a full World Series share to cancer research, and in part because Andrews had followed his playing days with 25 years as the Jimmy Fund’s executive director.

The young man who threw out the first pitch yesterday was a young boy with cancer in 2007, when he also threw the first pitch to Andrews to cap the 1967 team’s 40th Fenway reunion. What was remarkable about that pitch was not that it was errant, or that it was a “nut pitch,” as another mocking online news source classily put it, but rather that he could make the pitch at all.

What do you think: did the news sites that ran this story know that the guy was a cancer survivor and shouldn’t be nationally ridiculed because he has had more pressing matters to attend to than perfecting his pitching skills, or were they just too lazy and incompetent to check the background on the episode?

I’m going to say that this is just about the worst non-Trump reporting I have seen lately. Not just unethical, but dumb, lazy, mean-spirited and hateful. You know, Main Stream Media reporting at it’s finest.

This is funny: I saw a vague link to this, and clicked thinking that it was Jim Lonborg or somebody making the first. When I saw it was a civilian, I just stopped it mid-pitch. Had no idea who threw it, or where it landed.

I’m wondering if Jimmy Kimmel should share some responsibility as far as including this video on his show without checking the facts in this incident. Maybe the young man’s parents should be talking with some attorneys now. I bet that Kimmel is going to get some very angry tweets from cancer survivors at the very least.

I hope Jimmy Kimmel remains cancer-free, and if he doesn’t, that he will receive successful treatment so that he can throw a first pitch at Fenway – or at least, have the opportunity to make such a throw.

wow… More evidence of how lazy and quick to report the media is.Rreally sad. Wonder how far it has to go until they are accountable. How many will have to die? I know many smart people see the lack of professionalism in journalism, but it seems they are all about having people back up their positions and don’t care.

Antifa beat up some journalists in Charlottesville for committing the sin of filming Antifa, and I didn’t learn anything about it until I changed the channel to One America News…so yeah, they still don’t care.

For some reason this failed to post yesterday… I watched the clip on the Today Show, and while I think it was inappropriate and silly, they did mention that the pitcher was a cancer survivor, actually, and went on to show a screenshot of his twitter account (or whatever social media it was), in which he posted “and the worst thing? I’m a pitcher!” (on his HS ball team). I am tired of seeing all of the nut shots and other evidence of people being stupid or inappropriate (how many years has “America’s Funniest Videos” been on??), but the Today Show did get part of this right.